Okay,
I'm a Windows/Linux user. I only recently discovered the amazing world of linux (2 years ago), and Gentoo has blown the doors off of my computers (<1 year ago). Well my family needs a laptop, so I was considering retiring my machine well before its time, and donating it to them. If I do so, my question is, will my life be better getting a Mac machine. Of course OS X is superior to Windows' crap, but I've always felt the need to be familiar with M$ to be able to provide support for my family. Yet, over time I find myself just trying to make M$ behave more like Linux. How do you like portage on OS X? I'm willing to use Fink, but shoot, I love Gentoo! I want a nice laptop that operates easily (power, and support wise), and my servers will be my Gentoo babies. In gentoo, I mainly use emacs (sorry, but I'm an emacs>vim person), tetex, R, amarok and of course the gcc compiling suite. Any advice for a guy considering making the mac purchase? Should I just get a cheap Dell laptop, and just install Gentoo on it, or is Portage on OS X turning out to be a success? I want to be a helpful contributor to this effort, but I would like some advice on making such a purchase._________________Comp Specs:
Asus A7V(rev1.02)|AMDXP2100+@1.7GHz|Creative SB128PCI|32MB NVIDIA/TNT2AGP|512MBPC-133

I was a gentoo lover ... what am I saying ... I am a gentoo lover, and I recently bought a powerbook.
Portage is getting better for ppc-macos, and the only thing I could not find for my mac is a webcam support for msn messenger, this is the only thing.
I think you'll be amazed by the possibilities it will offer you.
H.

I have a PBG4 and I have tetex, R, and emacs all installed. I use portage, but I didn't get any of those programs that way. Most of the mac ports have been made independent of portage so you just have to look around and download them yourself. Fortunately in general you can download binaries or installers. I haven't been paying much attention as I've been writing so I've probably rambled a bit, but yes, I have a powerbook, love it to death, have a dual boot with gentoo, have portage on my Mac partition, and would highly recommend it.

Works good, but the masked apps don't : / so just check packages.gentoo.org for the apps you want to install befroe making a decision. I wanted to run GTK-Gaim (gaim.sf.org) but emerge gaim didn't quite work : ( oh well.. you can still install gentoo on your power book =)

The Mac OS X implemintation of R is excellent, so just get that from your local cran mirror. I have tried to get tetex to build under portage, but to on avail, had to go another route. Both vim and emacs are built in to OS X, but if you want a GUI emacs, once again, you will have to install the binary package---which under OS X is both easy and does not leave a mess. GCC is likewise built in, it comes as a part of the excellent Xcode IDE. Why, even X11 is already there for your conveniance.

Should you get an {i|power}book? Absolutely! They are well built machenes, I can get nearly five hours of battery life, and you get UNIX with all hardware working right out of the box---and working well. No crying about wireless card drivers which have to be run in some sort of Windows emulation mode. My one bit of advice would be to save your money and get an iBook unless the laptop is going to be your primary computer. Perhaps you may want to hold off on the purchase unil you are sure that whatever you are getting will have OS 10.4 pre-installed---it is due to ship April 29._________________|
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And some days the Universe just gives you the finger.

Woland: It seems that I was luckier than you, then, or maybe just tried when portage was more mature on the Mac, but TeTeX and Emacs-cvs emerged without a hitch on my Powerbook. That was when using Panther. Now with Tiger, I can't get stuff installed at all; I just get error messages. This is rather unfortunate, since upgrading to Tiger broke my Emacs. _________________If we weren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made of meat?

I´m curious if this project has advanced somewhat? I´ve only recently put Tiger on my powerbook instead of Gentoo and plan on dualbooting between Tiger and Gentoo. Now I´m considering the worth of having portage as it is now, on Tiger... I´d love a portage that works, but the last time I tried it... it really wasn´t that good, so few packages available/working and personally I don´t have time to help make ebuilds work Been a long while now, so any new and good experiences?_________________Dive into Gentoo Linux and emerge into a new world

10.4.1 is by far the nicest OS I've ever used. It has a great GUI and has a BSD backend! Its the ultimate combo meal. While I haven't tried Gentoo on top of OSX yet I'm reading a lot about it, but so far I just haven't found a good reason to do it. All the Linux apps I need are available for down in a Mac image format of some sort. Plus like the some else said everything works out of the box that to me is such a big plus. If youre a UNIX developer then Mac OS is by far the nicest environment to use. Once you find where the Console Icon is youll never look back.

10.4.1 is by far the nicest OS I've ever used. It has a great GUI and has a BSD backend! Its the ultimate combo meal. While I haven't tried Gentoo on top of OSX yet I'm reading a lot about it, but so far I just haven't found a good reason to do it. All the Linux apps I need are available for down in a Mac image format of some sort. Plus like the some else said everything works out of the box that to me is such a big plus. If youre a UNIX developer then Mac OS is by far the nicest environment to use. Once you find where the Console Icon is youll never look back.

Yeah =) Nice console icon.

I like the idea of running gentoo and using Mac-on-linux to run osx on top of gentoo in full screen mode, but that still would leave me with no wireless... =(_________________
Linux User | 364705howto install coldfusion mx 7 under gentoo

Portage on OS X is very cool, but know that it is nascent. Compared to Gentoo Linux or Fink or Darwin Ports, its got a LONG way to go. The good news: it *is* going there...

I'm a big time Gentoo user but currently use DarwinPorts with my OS X machines. I'd LOVE to move to portage...but until Portage on OS X "gets there", I will be sticking with DarwinPorts._________________-=iMav=-